Bull thistle.

Yes that scratchy old thing that makes heck of a pasture.

Here's mine that I cultivated and watered (please, no yelling!) earlier in the season.

It's 6 feet tall and over 4 1/2 wide.

I like the flowers and so do the bees and butterflies, but I'll be cutting this intruder down this week. Kinda hate to do it, since the show has just begun, but with all those seeds on the way, its gotta go.

Robert.

Yes, I yanked out quite a few Cirsium recently too. Photo below of a Cirsium palustre that went to Cirsium heaven along with about 100 of its brethren last week.

There are many native thistles. In my opinion they aren't as showy as their exotic cousins but they're out there and critters are equally as attracted to them as they are to the introduced species. Check out Cirsium carolinianum, C. horridulum, C. altissimum, and C. muticum. I actually think you'll like those and they're all indigenous to your State. They're somewhat comparable to the Cirsium vulgare only I don't quite know any nurseries selling them- good luck in that department. Most people don't know the difference between the native species and the exotic species so they get ripped out of the ground quite frequently.

In the early part of the 20th century, there was a Thistle inspector in our county and you could be fined $5 for every thistle he found on your land. That would be a weeks wage for every thistle that you allowed to get to bloom.

OMG, Kathleen! Farming was so intense then! FIVE DOLLARS a plant, wow.

I know how the kids spent their springs..........

Equi~
There's some natives on the property here and there, by the roadside etc. and I always let them go when I can. The goldfinches love them so, as they do my poppies and purle cornflowers. They make a vertical split down the side of the poppy pods and empty them out over a few days and when the Echinacea heads are ripe, they'll pick every seed out leaving a ravaged cone. I have to fight to get some seeds to plant!

Don't know where else to post this picture, but one of my favorite "alien residents" is "Queen Anne's Lace". Here is some in a bed with a hybrid Monarda.

Robert.

Stan still whacks them like it's going to cost him a bundle. I have been know to let one bloom and then cut it down.

I like the Queen Anne's Lace, too. Up here, it mostly grows along road edges and where ever I let it light. That and the daisies and chicory don't really have much of an effect ecologically speaking here as the soil is mostly heavy clay and heavily tilled. We live in a small area where most of the farms are dairy and most considered small, although there are some major exceptions of 500-900 cow herds. It doesn't really give the aliens much of a chance, and the ground that has gone fallow due to farms going under or just not farmed anymore runs to golden rod in the space of only a couple of years.

I imagine it is a much different story out in the prairies.

I've always liked the flowers on bull thistle too.

I remember walking pastures as a child digging them out with an old fashioned weed tool. I don't know why they always made us do that when it was 100 degrees outside and 100 % humidity. The pasture was uphill both ways too.

I blame it on the fact that I had two Scottish great grandmothers.

Well, my lovely huge thistle is no more. It had begun to seed so I took the loppers to it.

Gone but not forgotten. 'Bye Bully!

Robert.